Joe Torre grew to love baseball playing with his friends on the
streets of Brooklyn, New York, using nothing more than a wadded-up
piece of paper and a broken broomstick.
Los Angeles Dodgers manager
Joe Torre (left) and vice president of the San Diego Padres Dave
Winfi eld (right) pose for photos with young Chinese baseball
players during a press conference in Beijing yesterday. Major
League Baseball announced that the first-ever MLB exhibition game
will be played in China between the Dodgers and Padres. (Photo:
AP)
Four World Series titles and a storied career later, the manager
of the Los Angeles Dodgers will play a part in what Major League
Baseball (MLB) hopes will become a new era for baseball in
China.
Torre will lead the Dodgers to Beijing on March 15 and 16 to
face the San Diego Padres in the MLB China Series 2008 at the
Wukesong Baseball field, the venue for baseball events during the
Olympic Games. They will be the first MLB games
ever played in China.
"In the next 10 years, we want kids to grow up in China thinking
of baseball as a Chinese sport," said Jim Small, vice president of
MLB in Asia.
Small is quick to point out that baseball has been played longer
in China than it has in Japan, one of the top baseball countries in
the world. He said that is one of MLB's biggest advantages in
gaining a foothold in China.
"People here look at baseball as an Asian sport, not as an
American sport," he said.
But capitalizing on those advantages is by no means easy in a
country where table tennis is considered the national pastime. In a
nation also crazy about sports like soccer and basketball, there is
hardly any room for baseball.
"Hopefully, we can help you develop a love for the game as we
love it in the United States," San Diego Padres vice president Dave
Winfield said during a press conference in Beijing yesterday.
That love for the game translates into enthusiasm among the
athletes headed to China in March. Gene Orza, chief operating
officer of the MLB Players Association, said the players are
thrilled for the opportunity to share their game with China.
"Unlike any other international event I've been involved in, I
haven't heard any players on the Dodgers or Padres say they didn't
want to come and play in China," Orza said. "The players back in
the States realize this is truly a start - a first step - in
globalizing the sport."
Such globalization is significant for baseball, a sport that has
been voted out of the 2012 London Olympics but is hoping to return
in 2016.
"It's a personal disappointment that baseball won't be part of
the Olympics in 2012," Winfield said.
"We'll do everything we can to keep baseball on the agenda and
on your minds and keep making it part of the world, our gift to the
rest of the world."
Following NBA's lead
MLB hopes to follow in the footsteps of the NBA, the league that
has become the model for all professional sports leagues hoping to
stake a claim in China.
Small said although the NBA appears to have been an "overnight
success" in the Chinese market, the basketball league had been
"setting the table" for some 20 years before it really started to
take off.
"The NBA has done a terrific job in China and we've learned a
lot from them - that it took a while for them to do this," Small
said. "If it takes us 20 years, so be it. But we know it won't
happen overnight."
MLB has made a concerted effort to grow the sport here on a
grassroots level.
In 2004, for example, MLB co-sponsored the National Schools
Championship, a tournament that attracted more than 2,000 players
and 132 different teams. The championship game of the university
division was broadcast on Beijing TV.
Last September, MLB launched the "Play Ball!" physical education
program in five cities across China. The baseball-based curriculum
has been incorporated into 120 different elementary schools and
reaches an estimated 100,000 students across China, quite a big
number considering only about 150,000 people played baseball in
China prior to the program.
MLB has also helped China develop its national team. As part of
a development agreement MLB signed with the Chinese Baseball
Association in 2003, the league sent former stars Jim Lefebvre and
Bruce Hurst to serve as the manager and pitching coach,
respectively, for China's national team. In 2005, the team beat
South Korea in the Asian qualifier for the World Cup of Baseball,
the first time China had ever defeated one of the big three.
One thing that would certainly help the popularity of baseball
in China would be an equivalent to the NBA's Yao Ming - a hometown
star for whom Chinese fans could feel proud to cheer. Five Chinese
players have spent time in the minor league systems of the Seattle
Mariners and New York Yankees, but none so far have broken into the
big leagues.
It is probably only a matter of time before China sees its first
homegrown big leaguer. As Torre said, the China Baseball Academy
for 12- to 15-year-olds, which the league helped launch last
August, will be MLB's first real chance to evaluate the
undiscovered talent in the Middle Kingdom.
Torre said the Asian players he has managed, such as the
Yankees' Japanese superstar Hideki Matsui, show as much
"discipline, commitment, focus and respect for the game" as any of
the players he's seen.
"It makes my job as a manager that much easier," Torre
quipped.
Small admitted MLB is still in its infancy in China, but he
believes the league's "multi-pronged approach" here - including
sponsorship deals, TV agreements and further "baseball diplomacy"
missions - will ultimately lead to a home run for the sport.
"In baseball terms, we're in the first inning of a nine-inning
game," he said. "We're off to a good start, but we still have a
long way to go."
(China Daily January 25, 2008)
